User talk:Charles Matthews

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Museum infobox

Hi Charles. Can you do me a favour and copy the text here and update Template:Infobox museum. It is locked from editing (somewhat unnecessarily) unless you are a sysop. Not much different but the map is standardised at 250px, the big red pin changed to a smart looking museum icon and the caption/labels sorted per standard. There should be no problem. I've been doing a lot of work with making city maps to feature landmarks on like Template:Location map United States San Francisco etc. I added a mapping parameter to infobox stadium this morning and eventually they will be standardised as more maps are made. But some templates are locked so will require an admin to update them . Thanks. Dr. Blofeld ^{White cat} 11:02, 14 May 2010 (UTC)

Done. Does Template:Infobox museum/doc need anything? Charles Matthews (talk) 11:09, 14 May 2010 (UTC)

Nope, its just an aesthetic change. To make it look like McDonald's Cycle Center with an improved locator and label. Actually another little tweak is needed. Could you just reduce the marksize from 12 to 8 for the current one -that would be fine. Cheers Dr. Blofeld ^{White cat} 11:15, 14 May 2010 (UTC)

Done. Charles Matthews (talk) 11:38, 14 May 2010 (UTC)

Looks good, see National Museum Cardiff. Which city do you live. Does your city have any articles on here? I can create a map of the place if you want it from OpenStreetMap. Dr. Blofeld ^{White cat} 12:37, 14 May 2010 (UTC)

Fitzwilliam Museum is within walking distance. Charles Matthews (talk) 13:12, 14 May 2010 (UTC)

A present. Dr. Blofeld ^{White cat} 15:12, 14 May 2010 (UTC)

Nice. Charles Matthews (talk) 16:19, 14 May 2010 (UTC)

Could you give me an indication of what part of the map is the central part of Cambridge because I can make a smaller scale map showing streets. I gather it is within the pink road ring in the middle to the west of that section. I tend to make two maps of the cities I make them e.g Template:Location map Netherlands Amsterdam Greater and Template:Location map Netherlands Amsterdam Central. The problem I saw with cropping a more central map was that many of the university colleges seem quite spread out and some wouldn't fit in it. The reason I say is because these maps can be used for articles about the colleges locating them within Cambridge.

Also I've spotted one last tweak needed to infobox museum. Default photo size is currently too small and is not inline with the map size. Can you change the image photo size to 250 and also make the marksize 10 px rather than 8px. LOL 12px was too big, 8 px too small!! It should be fully sorted then! Dr. Blofeld ^{White cat} 17:43, 14 May 2010 (UTC)

Dr. Blofeld ^{White cat} 17:26, 14 May 2010 (UTC)

The actual centre: it's above the "C" of Cambridge on the map, just slightly to the left, a small pink area that is the marketplace. Officially it would be Church of St Mary the Great, Cambridge. I'll get onto the tweak now. Charles Matthews (talk) 19:32, 14 May 2010 (UTC)

As for colleges, there are two main groups. One is strung along the river, which runs north-south and is west of the central area. The other is along the road named "Hills Road" as it goes towards the middle of the town, east of the central area. And there are some outliers. Charles Matthews (talk) 19:41, 14 May 2010 (UTC)

Thankyou Charles. Have a look at Church of St Mary the Great, Cambridge now. I've also modified the church template to have a more appropriate marker in my view than the red dot. OK? I hope the church is marked in the right location. Dr. Blofeld ^{White cat} 09:44, 15 May 2010 (UTC)

The church symbol is at the left end of the brown quadrilateral that is the church on the map: close enough. Charles Matthews (talk) 09:58, 15 May 2010 (UTC)

Google Books and DNB.

Your research in this field is extensive and greatly eases the process of contributing to this work. Thank-you. The links I provided were done so only after exhausting other reference options, as the existing ones had gaps in coverage. As the provided links are visible on my system, my presumption is that they work for all. These links, in their current location, facilitate the ongoing DNB work. Would it be okay to leave them there, temporarily, during our ongoing effort?CUoD (talk) 12:08, 20 May 2010 (UTC)

Fine - there would be every reason to tabulate as much as possible about the DNB online, in some place. It really is a complex story. The business about Google Books, the DNB and the UK may be (my assumption) something they worked out with the Oxford University Press; but there is no reason they have to tell me, or why you would be aware of it. Charles Matthews (talk) 14:47, 20 May 2010 (UTC)

I agree, the story is complex, no doubt.

On a different tanget, Lindsay, John (1552-1598) should be the correct title, in my haste to make a move, his birthday was initially left as "1592". All of the links currently point to the correct page with a 1552 birth, which incorrectly redirects to the page with the 1592 birth, where the article resides. Separate topic, time permitting, please take a look at Navigation page for Volume 3. I edited yesterday, thinking value added, and adjusted several titles based upon my understanding of DNB guidelines. In an attempt to avoid working at cross purposes, would prefer a gentle nudge so that I avoid back-tracking someone else's good work.CUoD (talk) 16:43, 20 May 2010 (UTC)

That's that other wiki, with the friendly people, though! I have just moved it back over the redirect, on Wikisource. As you can see from that, in May 2009 I wasn't too clear about the guidelines myself. It has become a bit more hectic since then, but on matters to do with the titles the important thing is to converge to a shared understanding. Eventually there will have to be a pass through all the articles to sort out various issues, but I'm not too concerned with that now. The titles do matter, to the extent that we should be able to predict the title correctly and put it in listings and redlinks before it is created. Charles Matthews (talk) 20:52, 20 May 2010 (UTC)

Agreed. Thanks for your help.

I wind up accessing most major university libraries across the US with this search engine. On occasion I get works from Canada and UK as well. I will pass your question along when I come across someone that can give you a more insightful response. CUoD (talk) 02:18, 21 May 2010 (UTC)

Request for lifting of restriction

Please be aware that a request to lift a restriction has been made in an ArbCom case in which you were an arbitrator.[1]Anythingyouwant (talk) 09:09, 22 May 2010 (UTC)

John Thomas (bishop of Winchester)

I just thought I should tell you that this article could use a little cleanup. I added 3 tags (stub and 2 others that applied). Just thought you should know Mr. R00t ^{Leave me a Message} 01:35, 24 May 2010 (UTC)

NRHP

Hi. Can you edit Template:Infobox NRHP. Although the majority didn't take to my full change proposal there seemed to be a consensus by everyone that the current red dot is too large. It has been suggested it be reduced to 7px. Can you add |marksize = 7 to the mapping section next to where it says float=center. That should be fine as there is support for this, unfortunately not for the other changes I wanted to make. Thanks. Dr. Blofeld ^{White cat} 09:31, 26 May 2010 (UTC)

Done. Charles Matthews (talk) 09:49, 26 May 2010 (UTC)

Cheers. I've just expanded Scott D. Sampson. Interesting stuff. Madagascar is incredibly biologically rich... Obviously it was during Gondwana times too! Dr. Blofeld ^{White cat} 10:51, 26 May 2010 (UTC)

I first read that as "biographically rich"! Current obsession showing. Madagascar does get over 100 hits on the ODNB database, some of which are early and interesting. Charles Matthews (talk) 11:04, 26 May 2010 (UTC)

Biographically rich? lol. Well there are a fair few missing Malagasy politicians... Can you reedit the museum infobox. There seems to be a consensus emerging that a simple dot without a label is preferred. I just created a map of DC see White House I think it looks good with just a dot. Can you then clear the label= parameter , change the marker to Red pog.svg and the size to 7px! Sorry to be fussy but in such cases it is often a trial and error type thing. The thing is the open street maps are already cluttered enough, I think the minimist look is probably better too. How the museum infobox is fully protected but the general building one isn't beats me!!! The building infobox is used in way more articles!! Dr. Blofeld ^{White cat} 18:45, 26 May 2010 (UTC)

Too many tabs open today. The museum template now reads:

:|mark       =Red pog.svg
:|marksize   =7
:|label      = 

So that's as required? Charles Matthews (talk) 20:52, 26 May 2010 (UTC)

Indeed. Thanks. Check out National Portrait Gallery (United States). I think this looks good now. Shame about the choice of colours on open street map though. I did propose our own mapping project a while back but it didn't gain momentum. A shame really as wikipedia really ought to have a formal atlas to accompany it and it would be nice to have higher quality maps of cities. Some day they'll improve, (and WikiAtlas too) I'm sure... Dr. Blofeld ^{White cat} 21:05, 26 May 2010 (UTC)

Groan, one more tiny tweak needing doing to the museum infobox, should definately be the last then!!. See this. The alt text simply needs to be blanked. Of course an alternative is that the museum info is moved to semi protection to I can edit it. I have no idea why it is fully locked. I can't see a history of vandalism.. Dr. Blofeld ^{White cat} 08:57, 27 May 2010 (UTC)

I think that's done. (There was another "alt" hidden in a conditional, and the example wasn't completely analogous.) Charles Matthews (talk) 09:14, 27 May 2010 (UTC)

Gracias. It never ceases to amaze me though what is still missing from wikipedia. Earlier I started Eduardo Delgado, Marina Piccinini and Concert Artists Guild amongst others... Delgado and Piccinini have performed with some of the world's top orchestras yet were somehow missing.. The thing about wikipedia is that the growth is very uneven, it will amaze you at the extent of coverage in one place and then on another topic will shock you sjust for the sheer number of red links that exist. I think the best way to approach it is to create articles and those articles which are red links you start and so on in a chain effect. Not to mention the amount of work needing adding from encyclopedias. I've done a bit of work from the Universal Lithuanian Encyclopedia from Lithuanian wikipedia. No doubt it has thousands of missing articles..You probably also have many biographical dictionaries you want to plough through but also don't have the time to accomplish what needs to be done.. Dr. Blofeld ^{White cat} 13:05, 27 May 2010 (UTC)

Current DNB (sub)project is based on the 27,000 articles of the old Dictionary of National Biography. Checking remains a big task, but it looks like 50% correspond to missing topics. Charles Matthews (talk) 13:57, 27 May 2010 (UTC)

So only 13,500 missing articles from that particular dictionary then... The thing is if you start an article and then write another article from within it the red links become overwhelming. Check out Kultura (newspaper) and Valery Fokin which I just started to rid of a red link. To rid of a red link you end up with like 10 times more red links in another article!! I have to cringe when people say "wikipedia will run out of topics to write about".. Dr. Blofeld ^{White cat} 15:45, 27 May 2010 (UTC)

See List of dissenting academies, Goulstonian Lectures and suchlike lists. Charles Matthews (talk) 19:56, 27 May 2010 (UTC)

Sawilowsky's Paradox

Hi Charles. First, let me apologize for losing my temper on the Shlomo talk page. But please check out some of the comments recently made by Edstat regarding points by User:Melcombe on various statistics pages. He's gone back to using article talk pages for name-calling and harassment [2], implying that Melcombe is not a professional while railing on Wikipedia [3], and using the occasion to complain about the Shlomo page [4], as well as more. You can see that this was not just a thing between me and him; he treats everyone who disagrees in such a way.

But that's not really what I'm here. You made a good point about whether the term "Sawilowsky's Paradox" is an established phrase in the literature of Statistics. Well, the "reference"[5] he gives for it is 1) by Sawilowsky, trying to name it after himself; 2) not in a peer-reviewed journal that would try to stop such an action, but rather a commercial book (known for the vanity press element); and 3) will not be published until August 30, 2010 [6], yet he happens to know what it states. Apparently, the phrase has never been used anywhere else, as he claims that is the reference where it is defined. So what does this say about your point of using WP for defining a topic?

Also, I was going to say that at least he hasn't resorted to using sockpuppets to badger away editors (like User:141.217.105.21 and User:68.43.236.244), but please note User:76.112.241.229, who recently jumped in on harassing Melcombe; a check on the IP address shows that it is in the same neighboorhood as User:68.43.236.244 and it contributes to the exact same topics. He has been repeatedly asked to stop the sockpuppets, and only stopped temporarily because they were blocked.

I didn't post the fact on the reference there because I guarantee Edstat would harass me worse than Melcombe. But while I may deserve it, Melcombe doesn't. He's probably the most experienced WP editor on statistics. I would appreciate it if you could provide some defense. And check on the validity of that reference. Thanks! Iulus Ascanius (talk) 03:59, 29 May 2010 (UTC)

Thanks for the alerts. I will try to react appropriately. Charles Matthews (talk) 07:22, 29 May 2010 (UTC)

Hi there

Good to see you today. This was the article by Oliver Kamm which I mentioned. I was so incensed by it, that I sent him a rude message! Looks like it was about the same time you did a BBC interview. I mean every source of knowledge since the beginning of time has had errors in it. Or does he seriously think we should believe everything it says in the Times? Very disappointing. See you next time maybe! Laurence Boyce (talk) 21:07, 29 May 2010 (UTC)